


When the Bow Breaks

by orphan_account



Category: Wolfblood (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Foster Care, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-28 21:57:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3871171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even bad dreams were cowed by Maddy. The left-over jitters took one look at her annoyed little face and scurried back into the shadows where they belonged. In the warmth of Maddy's room, and the timid glow of a night-light, Alric and his pack suddenly seemed far away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Bow Breaks

It should be perfect.

That’s what Rhydian kept thinking, as he lay under borrowed covers in a newly furnished spare room. Daniel and Emma had put him up at the top of the stairs, just across the hall from them and Maddy. The room still had that dusty, out of the attic smell but the scent of fresh cut wood drifted from his framed sketches and softened the stale room a bit.

He was clean and full of cooked meat. He had a roof over his head with central heating warming up the house, and no-one was breathing down his neck, or scratching him, or lurking around to pounce on his back. He could even see the thermostat from here.

It was twenty two Celcius and there was no reason to feel chilled. No reason at all, why the same “first-night” feeling he'd had in a dozen foster homes should be itching at him now and chasing away sleep. He hated having that feeling in Maddy's home which should be so familiar, and he kept waiting for his heart to catch up and realize that it was okay to just fall asleep already.

But every strange creek and rattle of pipes set his heart pounding, as he listened for the tell-tale click of Alric's paws on the stairs. Or the heavy breaths of Meiner and Aaron stalking up behind him. He wanted to get up and pace or something. Check the locks or prowl the yard, or failing that, go hide in Maddy's room. He was pretty sure this twitchy feeling wouldn't follow him in there. He didn't dare though. Sneaking into Maddy's late at night wouldn't exactly endear him to her parents, and he needed to stay out of trouble.

He shuddered, thinking of Alric. The Smiths weren't like him at all, Rhydian knew that; he just wished he could figure what they were like. Maybe then he'd stop jumping at every tap of tree branches outside his new window. Maybe he'd be able to join in when Maddy talked about how great this going to be, staying in the same house and running to school together like a real pack. Maybe it would actually feel real.

Rhydian was stupidly grateful they'd let him stay here, and the Smith's been great, really. Daniel even built him a wardrobe, and they said he was welcome in their pack. Of course they'd also said that when he first met them too. Told him he was practically family over hog-roast. It was kind of creepy, really. Then when he did things they didn't like suddenly he was an interloper, and someone else's problem. They threw him out, then welcomed him back and he now he didn't know which way to jump.

They reminded him of the Marrin's actually. He'd lived with them for awhile, back in Leeds. Mrs. Marrin had been a strict church-goer and expected all her fosters to come with her on Sunday morning in pressed suits. Except Rhydian only found that out after he got whacked with a spoon for missing it, because she never said anything. She just expected him to know, like doing anything else was unthinkable.

Rhydian was always walking carefully in that house, waiting for something to crack and never knowing what it would be. The Marrin's didn't stand for noise or mess either. Not like the Blackwells, who'd been big and loud and lived in a crammed old tenement. They spent every dinner meal with their six kids shouting at each other down the table and ate from one giant pot, sometimes with spoons, mostly with hands, but never with plates.

He'd really tried with the Smiths when they first met. Strange as it was having Maddy's parents talking to him about wolfbloods like they were trying to give him the sex talk. It was nice that they cared. They were good people, and Rhydian didn't even know why it had gone wrong. Except that it always seemed to go wrong, one way or another.

The look that Emma and Daniel had started giving him was the same look that Mrs. Haversham wore when he'd been sent to her in Bradford. She'd been a nice old lady, who was always trying to stuff him with tea and biscuits like that'd turn him normal somehow. Beyond that, she didn't know what to do. He got sent back to the Home after just a few weeks, and hadn't even unpacked.

Maybe, at first, the Smiths had expected him to be just like them. Figured they'd give him a few talks about the full moon and a key to thecellar and that'd be a job well done. Rhydian thought that too. Not so much the cellar. He kind of hated the cellar, but he used to think that being able to talk to people who were like him was all that mattered.

He snorted into his musty pillow. Turned out he didn't even fit with his own kind. He was either too wild, or too tame. Corrupting Jana with human magazines. Or corrupting Maddy with Eolas. Neither one thing or the other.

A sudden crack outside sent him bolting upright, sniffing for a hint of Alric's foul breath on the wind. He tossed back the stale covers, unable to keep still any longer and got up, pressing an ear to his new door. The snores of Mr. and Mrs. Smith echoed down the hall and outside he finally heard the terrible scratch of claws on stone he'd been waiting for, along with the rattle of bins. Rhydian threw open his door and hurtled down the stairs.

He threw open the back kitchen door, heart pounding, expecting to see Alric and the others rise out of the shadows like beasts from some kids story. A pair of beady, glowing eyes scowled at him from the shadows a-top the bins and Rhydian snarled, cornered, and near to wolfing out.

Then his enemy shifted into the light and Rhydian found himself facing off with a badger. It was shuffling over the remains of a fallen bin, treading on orange peels and bacon rinds and looking far too harmless and fluffy. Nothing like his nightmare come to life. Rhydian felt like an idiot, and backed up with a wince. He closed the kitchen door as softly as he could, very glad no one had seen that particular fit of instinct.

“Rhydian?” Maddy's voice asked, right behind him.

Rhydian jumped, putting his back to the door and quickly stuffing his vein-ridden hands under his arms, leaning back and trying to appear cool and casual. Like he hadn't just been about to attack some stupid badger in the yard.

“Oh, hey, Mads.”

“It's one in the morning what're you doing?” she frowned, rubbing at her sleepy face.  She was dressed for bed in a soft purple shirt and loose pants with sheep all over them.

“Eh, nothing.”

“Really.” She skewered him with a skeptical eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Rhydian challenged. “Really. Why, what're you doing?”

“Looking for whoever's making all the racket,” she replied and Rhydian winced again.

“Ermm.”

“Are you okay?” she asked, and in the face of that point blank question Rhydian couldn't come up with a good lie. So he shrugged, gaze skittering over the dark corners of her family kitchen. “Right, come on,” she said and grabbed him, pulling him toward the stairs. “I'm not spending all night listening to you thumping round down here. I've got exams in the morning.”

They climbed the stairs, Maddy easily avoiding the creaky step at the bottom, and Rhydian followed, making note of the traitorous step so he'd know where it was next time. She dragged him right past his door and on to hers, and Rhydian was going to say something. He even had his mouth open, but he couldn't think of a thing before she dragged him inside with her and shut her door with an annoyed grunt.

“Um, Mad's” Rhydian frowned, still hugging his chest as she began pulling at the giant duvet on her bed and dumping it on the floor with extra pillows.

“What?” she grumbled.

“Won't your parents, I don't know, mind or something?” Rhdyian asked, eyeing the piling of bedding next to Maddy's bed frame as she crawled back into her own bed.

“Not as much as if we was staying up all night.”

Rhydian snorted, shaking his head, and dropped onto the floor besides Maddy's bed, pulling her duvet over him. Was it actually warmer in here? Felt like it.

Maddy's smell was everywhere, heavy and unyielding, like a stone wall between him and the rest of the house. He smiled to himself. It seemed even bad dreams were cowed by Maddy. The left-over jitters took one look at her annoyed little face and scurried back into the shadows where they belonged. In the warmth of Maddy's room, and the timid glow of a night-light in the shape of a crescent moon that he would never tease her about, Alric and his pack suddenly seemed more distant.

“What're you grinning about?” Maddy's soft voice grumbled above him and Rhydian tilted his head back, giving her a cheeky grin.

“Nothing.”

“Is that all you got to say anymore? Nothing?” she whispered, sarcastically. She was leaning over the side of her bed to look at him, cheek pressed into the frame. One arm snuck out of her covers to drape down next to him and toy with the leather string on his wrist. “I really missed ya, you know,” she said.

“I missed you too Madds,” Rhydian whispered back, playing with her fingers. “I missed this, and being... not lonely.” Rhydian shrugged, self conscious. “I dunno how to explain it.”

“You don't have to,” Maddy said. “I get it.”

She did too, he thought. She still wanted to ask, of course. He could see that in her eye, and the spark of fervor demanding that she be satisfied, but unlike Alric the look didn't send sick, resentful shivers up his spine. Total opposite in fact. That hint of yellow in her eyes was making all his tense muscles loosen up and sink into the pillows like water. He was actually feeling kind of sleepy now. It was nice.

Maybe, he thought, that was just because this was Maddy, and she was a rock. His rock. Someone he could really count on. She wasn't pushing either, even though she wanted to. Rhydian didn't feel the need to snarl at Maddy, or yell, or tell her to mind her own business.

“You know, I didn't even know I was in Stoneybridge 'till I woke up on your floor the other night,” he confessed in a sleepy mumble.  

“What, you didn't mean to come back?” Maddy asked sharply, raising up a little, eyes flashing at him in the dim glow of her nightlight.

“That's the funny thing.” Rhydian scrunched up his face, trying to remember those blurry days of struggling through the snow on all fours, paws aching and belly sharp with hunger. “I think I did, in a way. I mean, it's all kind of blurry. You know how things get when you're in wolf form,” he said and Maddy nodded. “When I left I just... ran. That was it.” He gulped, remembering the constant howls of the pack dogging his tired body, and fear nipping at his tail with every weakening step. Or the hole in the snow he stumbled in, barely escaping with a sprained paw and losing precious seconds as Alric closed in. “I didn't have any plan, but I never got lost or wondered if I should be going left or right. It was like part of me just knew where to go, all the time. I thought it was just instinct, you know. Like animals do. I didn't realize I was running toward something, till I got here.”

He was just talking nonsense now. His eyes were heavy and kept drooping shut, losing sight of Maddy for a moment before he forced them open again. His arm had fallen onto the floor by his head and Maddy's fingers were in his hair.

“It's not nonsense,” Maddy replied in a whisper, as if he'd said that last bit out loud. “Mum says a wolfblood can always find their pack, no matter what. No matter where. Even over leagues and leagues. Cause we know where we belong. Dad says it’s part Eolas, though mum won't hear of that. He says once you learn the shape of your pack, they stay in your head a long time. All you have to do is look for them and there they'll be.”

“So, no matter where we go, we can find the way home?” Rhydian mumbled, nearly asleep, his nose buried in the smell of Maddy's blankets.

“Yeah.”

“That's nice,” he said, and drifted off to sound of Maddy's breath and the gentle wind outside.

 


End file.
